A Tire Replacement on the 1st Trip of the Season

[flyfisherman]

Just returned from our annual April fly fishing sojourn to the mountains of western North Carolina. Stayed at a favorite NFS C/G for five days ... a good time was had by all - good food, good campfires, fair to good fishing and a couple of enjoyable trout dinners.  Weather was cold the first part of the week but warmed real nicely by the weekend (did a Monday to Monday schedule).

On route to the mountains stopped off to pick-up a fishing buddy and had lunch at his place. When we got ready to go the curb side tire on the Starcraft had gone flat. Come to find out there was a piece of tire tread missing (maybe the size of a quarter) right close to the sidewall even exposing the inner tire cords. On route to his place I took a stretch of I-95 that was under construction repair and do remember hitting a couple of chuck holes on the far right side of the x-way. To say I-95 has heavy truck traffic is an understatement and there are always repairs going on someplace along the part I travel.

Think maybe those tires have been on the ground four years and with the high gas prices have not made any substantial long distance runs so there's plenty of tire tread. Strongly suspect one of those chuck holes did the number on that tire. Anyway, jacked-up the camper and did the spare tire routine and got underway. But my spares (have two of them) are replaced tires that were on the camper before so a little leery of making a round trip close to a 1000 miles as a main stay tire. Remembered a tire store in Orangeburg, South Carolina, and stopped off there and they put on a new Carlisle 6-ply 5.30 X 12" tire ... tire, tax and mounted for $42.00 plus they now charge a disposable fee for the old tire of two bucks ... that's come on since I bought the last set.

Now that would be a grand end to the bad tire story except that when we got to the C/G and we all got set-up and settled in, made a trip to town a day or two later and when backing into the site I cut the truck a little too close on one side (darn that curb side!) and one of the large rocks that was lined up along the access had a sharp edge and would'nt you guess I clipped it and it cut the side wall of my truck tire! There we sat and watched that tire go flat.  Then  truck spare went into service. One thing I'll say about this trip ... brushed up on my tire chaging skills for both the camper and the truck!

But we had a good time.





Fly

[austinado16]

Geez Fly, that sounds like a story I'd tell.  Glad you had a good week inspite of all that!

[Tiffany]

Sorry to hear about the rough start to your trip, but thank goodness the tires were slow leaks instead of blowouts at 70mph on the freeway.   :yikes:   Glad to hear the rest of your trip was enjoyable!

[aw738]

Only the size of a quarter. I had the same thing happen on the way the Eastern Ralley in Bath NY. I had a section 6" long and as wide as the tread come off.